Dan Solove on Prawfsblawg asks:
So why does the Bar Exam persist? Perhaps as a way for states to restrain competition among lawyers . . . but this would be an impermissible purpose.
Well, of course it’s to restrain competition. And despite significant reservations about the value of the bar exam, that’s why it persists, since it’s pretty clear that the bar exam does not provide a worthwhile quality screen.
I discuss the conventional arguments for and against the bar exam and other licensing requirements in Lawyers as Lawmakers: A Theory of Lawyer Licensing, 69 Mo. L. Rev. 299 (2004), draft here. I also discuss a possibly counterintuitive justification for these requirements – to give lawyers a quasi-property right in the law of the licensing jurisdiction, and thereby encourage them to invest in maintaining and improving that law.
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